In the past few weeks I’ve been experimenting with traditional “hot” composting in one end of one of our worm bins. I had a number of 5 gallon buckets of food scraps left over from last summer that I needed to get rid of, and wasn’t sure it was a good idea to give such putrid stuff to the worms. I mixed the 10 gallons of food scraps into one end of the bin along with some dry leaves. A few days later I turned a bit of it with a turning fork, and found it was really steaming. I stuck a thermometer in it and covered it up again. A day or so later, it was at 145 degrees Fahrenheit!
- Hot Compost at 145 degrees F
Since I took this photo, the temperature has actually climbed into the 150’s, perhaps even 160’s. Wow!
People often ask me if they can add worms to a traditional compost bin/pile. I think this certainly shows that you can only add worms to compost if they have cooler places to hide, or if you manage the pile/bin very passively (throw scraps on every once in a while, don’t turn it regularly). Worms will be very happy to hang around the fringes of a hot compost pile (and finish the compost to beautiful vermicompost), but they can’t survive 145+ degrees directly in the center. In this large bin, they could easily escape to the other, cooler end.
I’m going to experiment more with using hot composting as a way of “pre-processing” scraps to give to the worms. Worms can’t eat food scraps directly, but rather need to wait for bacteria/fungi to start the process. A bit of hot composting at the beginning should help produce a half-finished compost the worms can finish up much more quickly.
Here’s a good article from the USDA about the various composting options, including “hot composting”, “cold composting” and vermicomposting: http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/FEATURE/backyard/compost.html
